Can We Really Understand Exponential Growth?

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin With a life-threatening pandemic, the only way to get a picture of the (invisible) virus’s past, current, and future spread is by mathematics; in particular, tabulating data and drawing graphs. As a result, newspapers, magazines, and news websites are replete with graphs and tables these days. But how well is the average...

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Sisters, How Y’all Feel? Brothers, Y’all Alright?

By: Anisah N. Nu’Man, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Spelman College, @_nudoc_ One day, before the start of my Linear Algebra class, a student asked everyone their thoughts on the following quote: “You have not lived a full life, if you have not been depressed.”   Though I was caught off guard by the student’s question, since...

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Opening Up Critical Conversations

By: Carrie Diaz Eaton, Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies, Bates College, @mathprofcarrie In a previous post, I asked where conversations about teaching, inclusion, and data science are occurring. Are they at conferences?  In subgroups? Now I want to ask a follow-up question: Who can participate in these conversations? I’ve been a fan of...

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Hope in the Heartland: The Carver Bridge to STEM Success Program

By: Erin R. Moss, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Millersville University, Co-editor of DUE Point National Science Foundation S-STEM grants provide scholarships for academically talented, low-income students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. At Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, Hope in the Heartland: The Carver Bridge to STEM Success Program is preparing a cohort of 15...

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Extending Grading Grace

By: Melissa Gutierrez Gonzalez, Pamela E. Harris, Alicia Prieto Langarica, and Ying Tang Dear Professors, We see and acknowledge all of the work you have done to migrate your classes online as you live through the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of you are doing this work while also homeschooling your kids and dealing with uncertainty, illness,...

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Reflections and Observations from Talking about Leaving Revisited

By: David Bressoud @dbressoud David Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics at Macalester College and Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences Links to resources and information posted related to the COVID-19 shutdown by the member societies of CBMS are available at https://cbmsweb.org/covid-19. As I briefly reported in my April 15 column,...

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The Graph that Stopped the World

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin Figure from the March 16 paper authored by Imperial College London’s COVID-19 Response Team, led by Neil M. Ferguson, “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand” The above graph stopped our world when it appeared on March 16. It was one of the key graphs in...

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You’re Really Going to Ask Me That in an Interview? Part 2: BIG Jobs Edition

By: Rachel Levy, Deputy Executive Director MAA @mathcirque What should you do when someone asks you an interview question that they shouldn’t ask? As a companion to MAA’s 101 Careers in Mathematics and SIAM’s BIG Jobs Guide, we have developed the BIG Career Interview Card Game to help people practice for internship and job interviews....

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Teaching, Research, and Service…Remotely??? The Present and Future of a Virtual Academic Life

By: Haydee Lindo, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Williams  College @haydeelindo, Anisah N. Nu’Man, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Spelman College, @_nudoc_  This global pandemic has shaken our lives more than we could have possibly anticipated. Our focus at this time should be our mental and physical health, and the well-being of the people in our lives....

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You’re Really Going to Ask Me That in an Interview? Part 1: Grad School Edition

By: Rachel Levy, Deputy Executive Director MAA @mathcirque When I applied to graduate school I had a phone interview. The guy on the phone was friendly, and enthusiastic about my application. But at one point the conversation took an unanticipated turn. “So, tell me, exactly how old are you?” At that time, I was about a...

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